{"id":8855,"date":"2023-03-15T22:30:05","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T22:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8855"},"modified":"2023-03-15T22:30:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T22:30:05","slug":"immoral-x-men-2-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8855","title":{"rendered":"Immoral X-Men #2 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>IMMORAL X-MEN #2<\/strong>
\n“Sins of Sinister, part 6: Four-Letter Words”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: Andrea Di Vito<\/strong>
\nColourist: Jim Charalampidis<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong>\u00a0Rasputin fights Mystiques.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.\u00a0<\/strong>Hope and Exodus prepares to attack the Compact.<\/em><\/p>\n

“+100, the Edge of the Pax.”<\/strong> The structure of the “Sins of Sinister” crossover is that the month 1 chapters all took place around 10 years after the save point, these chapters take place 100 years after, and next month will be 1000 years. Hope and Exodus are still around thanks to resurrection, as clarifies later on.<\/p>\n

Presumably the Pax is the ironic name for the Sinisterised Earth empire, since the alliance of alien races is apparently “the Compact”.We saw in\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> #2 that the Quiet Council had gone on the offensive against the rest of the galaxy, prompted (at least initially) by Hope’s concerns last issue that otherwise they would be wiped out themselves.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Intelligence\u00a0<\/strong>is the traditional ruler of the Kree.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“Can’t deploy the L-bombs and pop them until we’ve got eyes on the ground.”<\/strong> Hope explains this further on page 4.<\/p>\n

Hope<\/strong> now has a partly metal face, a metal arm, and a metal leg. When we saw her last issue, she had just got a cybernetic hand, claiming that “Someone’s got to be Cable.”<\/p>\n

The crew are probably generics, or at least chimeras not specifically based on any one character.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.\u00a0<\/strong>Hope attacks.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hope is apparently synching with Exodus’s powers; Exodus in turn is fuelled by belief, as mentioned back in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #2 (though it had come up occasionally before).<\/p>\n

The character fighting Hope appears to be a version of the Super-Skrull, holding four of Ronan the Accuser’s hammers.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.\u00a0<\/strong>Hope destroys the planets.<\/em><\/p>\n

The L-bomb is a chimera with the powers of\u00a0Lila Cheney<\/strong> (teleporting supporting character from\u00a0New Mutants<\/em>),\u00a0Firestar<\/strong> (from the X-Men),\u00a0Harry Leland<\/strong> (formerly of the Hellfire Club, currently the Krakoan ambassador to the UN) and\u00a0Micromax<\/strong> (very briefly a member of Excalibur, currently appearing in\u00a0Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain<\/em>).<\/p>\n

“If he wasn’t just a big pile of worms.”<\/strong> Cable had bonded with the worm-like Xilo when we last saw him in\u00a0Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits. The title, “Four-Letter Words”, seems to refer to the four letters used to describe DNA (G, T, C and A), given Mother Righteous’ comments on page 16.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: Hope’s log of the mission she’s just been on. The “Commander’s Log” thing is loosely a\u00a0Star Trek<\/em> reference.<\/p>\n

Emperor Dorrek<\/strong> might be Hulkling, the current Skrull Emperor, but given the passage of time, it might just be someone else using this quite common Skrull name – Hulkling is apparently Dorrek VIII.<\/p>\n

The Shi’ar<\/strong> have been wiped out by Professor X, according to\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> #2, though Hope doesn’t mention that directly.<\/p>\n

Storm<\/strong> is evidently still on the run after the fall of Arakko, and we’ll catch up with her in\u00a0Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants<\/em> #2.<\/p>\n

Mystique<\/strong> is mentioned only in passing by Hope, but she ought to be a significant character given her close links with Destiny. When we last saw her, in\u00a0Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants<\/em> #1, she was with Destiny. Apparently she’s been back leading a version of\u00a0Freedom Force<\/strong>, the name used by her version of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants during the period when they worked for the US Government in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n

The New Krakoan Calendar<\/strong> has named all the months after Quiet Council members, Roman Emperor style.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-8.\u00a0<\/strong>The Reliquary Arbor.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Reliquary Arbor<\/strong> is evidently the new version of Arbor Magna, the Krakoan resurrection location. Here, it’s a tank full of bits of Hope clones, which can’t be brought to life, but can be used to keep the resurrection production line going in her absence.<\/p>\n

The name is interesting, since it obviously parallels the Reliquary Perilous being assembled by Mother Righteous over in\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> – do all the Sinisters have one?<\/p>\n

“Sinister said something about it being a similar problem with Jean.”<\/strong>\u00a0Madelyne Pryor was created by Sinister as a clone of Jean Grey, but he wasn’t able to get her to wake up until she was charged up by the Phoenix Force, as covered in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #241. Hope doesn’t particularly like the comparison between her and Jean, because she doesn’t especially like people seeing her as a copy of a more established character.<\/p>\n

Genghis Khan\u00a0<\/strong>is described as a redhead by the 13th century historian Rashid-al-Din, though there’s some dispute about whether that’s really right, not least because al-Din describes it as a feature of Genghis Khan’s entire people; another suggested translation of the text has it referring to Khan’s skin tone.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.\u00a0<\/strong>The Quiet Council launch the Marauder.<\/em><\/p>\n

Referencing\u00a0Marauders<\/em>, of course – perhaps a hangover from the early draft where this was going to be a line-wide crossover. Again, Hope’s description references\u00a0Star Trek<\/em> (and\u00a0ET<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Emma is still heavily bondage-themed, 90 years on.<\/p>\n

Sinister has been serving the Council under duress since the last issue, when he persuaded Emma that his value to them lay in his ability to create more powerful chimeras.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-12.\u00a0<\/strong>Sinister introduces Rasputin IV.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is Sinister’s first five-power chimera, with the powers of Colossus, Kate Pryde, Unus, Laura Kinney and Quentin Quire – she also has a version of Magik’s Soulsword, but the narration suggests that she doesn’t actually have Magik’s powers. Despite that, she seems to be teleporting off the head of one of the Mystiques that she’s given as sparring partners.<\/p>\n

This is a version of the same chimera – also called Rasputin IV – who appeared prominently in\u00a0Powers of X<\/em> back in the day. Sinister has deliberately bred her to be a hero, but we’ll come to that.<\/p>\n

At any rate, by outright saying that this is as far as his chimera technology can go, Sinister is effectively telling the Quiet Council that they’ve got all the use out of him that they’re going to get – which they immediately pick up on. Sinister clearly realises this, though it’s not obvious where he sees the advantage in being so candid about it.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-14.\u00a0<\/strong>Mother Righteous visits Sinister.<\/em><\/p>\n

Interestingly, after all this time, Sinister apparently doesn’t recognise Mother Righteous.<\/p>\n

“I invented that game.”<\/strong> Referring to Sinister’s initial role in late 1980s comics of hanging around dropping mysterious hints about his wider agenda.<\/p>\n

As in\u00a0Legion of X<\/em>, Mother Righteous wants seemingly innocuous shows of appreciation, which appear to give her some kind of hold over people. Sinister doesn’t seem to realise this, but then again, it’s also quite out of character for him to acquiesce as quickly as he does – perhaps 90 years of this have just ground him down.<\/p>\n

PAGE 15.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Presumably an abbreviated version of what Sinister learns in the book – broadly speaking, something we already learned in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #8 coupled with the eventual confirmation that Orbis Stellaris, Dr Stasis and Mother Righteous are the other three Mr Sinister clones. Basically, they were created to explore different routes to creating a “dominion” before mankind can be destroyed by Chat-GPT. (“Essex Factors” means specifically mutants, not just science in general.) Mother Righteous makes clear here that she still intends to achieve ascent to a dominion, but the obvious question is how?<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.\u00a0<\/strong>Mother Righteous leaves Sinister.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sinister is correct that Nathaniel Essex got the diamond symbol when first turned into Mr Sinister in Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix<\/em>. But he’s not the original Nathaniel Essex. That said, of the four clones created in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #8, he is the closest to the original.<\/p>\n

Sinister seems convinced that this information is useful to him if only he can access his Moiras – presumably meaning that it’s information he intends to pass on to his next incarnation after rebooting the timeline.<\/p>\n

“He was the first villain I shot when I was an X-Man.”<\/strong> In Gillen’s\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 2 #2.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-19.\u00a0<\/strong>Exodus dumps Hope.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Chitauri\u00a0<\/strong>are another standard Marvel alien race (originally the Ultimate Universe version of the Skrulls).<\/p>\n

Exodus basically concludes that Hope’s messianic role is only possible when she is a symbol, which she can’t be while she’s inconveniently alive. The wider question is whether this is a general Quiet Council view or Exodus just taking the chance to get rid of her. She\u00a0is<\/em> potentially resurrectable – Hope told us directly at the start of the issue that there could only be one of her at a time, and the Reliquary Arbor allows resurrection to continue without her.<\/p>\n

PAGES 20-21.\u00a0<\/strong>Sinister frees Rasputin.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sinister is in fact telling Rasputin the truth here, and the only question is whether he’s sincerely repentant or just telling the saintly chimera what she needs to hear. Note that he doesn’t tell Rasputin exactly what he intends to do – he doesn’t say anything about rebooting the timeline, but rather just mentions “a device”, implying some sort of time travel agenda.<\/p>\n

PAGES 22-24.\u00a0<\/strong>Sinister and Rasputin steal the Marauder and leave.<\/em><\/p>\n

The crew are apparently loyal to Rasputin – that’ll teach Emma Frost to make them so obedient. Maybe Sinister can free them too, in due course.<\/p>\n

Sinister foresees a Star Trek-style five year mission, but of course we know it’s going to be 900 years before the next issue. Rasputin has Laura Kinney’s powers, so presumably she can survive.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. IMMORAL X-MEN #2 “Sins of Sinister, part 6: Four-Letter Words” Writer: Kieron Gillen Artist: Andrea Di Vito Colourist: Jim Charalampidis Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1.\u00a0Rasputin fights Mystiques. PAGE 2.\u00a0Hope and Exodus prepares […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8857,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855\/revisions\/8857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}